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The health, well-being and productivity (i.e. WELL) of office building occupants are vulnerable to poor office environments. Therefore, this study aims to identify new features and concepts of office buildings in supporting occupants’ WELL. To achieve that aim, this study: explores new WELL features for office buildings, develops new WELL concepts for office buildings and examines the influence of the newly developed WELL concepts on existing WELL building standard (WELL v2) concepts.

The first phase involved ten experts to assign weightage for health, well-being and productivity. In the second phase, 206 questionnaire survey data were collected from office building occupants throughout Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis established new WELL concepts for office buildings. Partial least-squares structural equation modelling examined the influence of the newly developed WELL concepts on the existing WELL v2 concepts.

Two new WELL concepts were developed: “space and services”, consisting of sufficient space, workstation privacy, office layouts, building automation systems, cleanliness and information technology (IT) infrastructure, and “building security”, consisting of security systems and safety at parking lots. Here, “space and services” influences all existing WELL v2 concepts, and “building security” influences the water, nourishment, mind and community concepts of WELL v2.

This study uncovers holistic WELL building concepts to support occupants’ health, well-being and productivity with additional new features and concepts for construction industry policymakers to establish holistic building assessment tools.

This study aims to examine whether information asymmetry (IA) mediates the relationship between women directors and the cost of equity (COE). Specifically, this study posits that women directors tend to lower the COE through the channel of IA.

This study uses the US-listed firms’ data from 2002 to 2014, comprising 11,189 firm-year observations. This study measures the COE by aggregating the four unique market-based COE models and apply pooled ordinary least square to estimate our results.

This study documents that women directors are linked to IA, and that IA is linked to the COE. Furthermore, in the mediation test, IA fully mediates the relationship between women directors and the COE. This study's results also validate the critical mass hypothesis, as the IA shows full mediation between the critical mass of women directors and COE. This study also discusses the limitations and major implications of the results along with possible future directions.

This study also supports the positive role of females in improvising the economic performance of the firms and supporting the sustainable development goals-5 (gender equality).

The originality of this study lies in its theoretical as well as empirical contributions. First, this study follows the line of inquiry of the mediation analysis, thereby contributing by examining whether the relationship between women directors and financial value, i.e. COE, is indirect. Second, in addition to ex post measures of the COE, this study used four ex ante unique market-based models to measure the COE. Most of the prior studies just rely on book-based measures or use a single market-based mode. Third, the findings contribute insights into how women directors add value and benefits firms.

In recent years, the field of financial technology (Fintech) has garnered significant attention due to advancements in technology, evolving consumer preferences and the growing need for financial services that are more accessible and user-friendly. The exponential expansion of Fintech is presenting novel prospects and obstacles for business. This study aims to investigate the relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and firms’ performance, with a particular focus on the moderating role of Fintech.

The study sample consisted of financial sector firms listed on the Bahrain Bourse (banks and insurance firms) during the period 2016–2022. The data were gathered primarily from annual reports and the Bahrain Bourse website. The independent variable represents the percentage of female directors on corporate boards while firms’ accounting and market-based performance were measured using return on assets and Tobin’s Q variables. The moderating variable, Fintech, was measured using a checklist developed using the Global Fintech Adoption Index. Fixed effect (FE) regression was used to analyze the study data. An alternative gender diversity measure was used to test the reliability of the main regression analysis.

The results of the study indicate a positive relationship between gender diversity on corporate boards and financial performance. Additionally, the findings of the study highlighted the positive impact of Fintech practices on firms’ performance. Nevertheless, the impact of Fintech on the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate performance was found to be insignificant.

The study sample included a particular sector in a single country, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Also, the current study applied FE regression to analyze the data; however, other econometric approaches could be used to overcome the endogeneity issue.

The findings of this study may have implications for policymakers and society, particularly in terms of promoting gender diversity and Fintech innovation.

This study contributes to the existing body of research by examining the potential impact of the percentage of female directors and the utilization of Fintech on firms’ performance in Bahrain. Given the ongoing endeavors to provide advanced Fintech solutions in the financial sector and the increasing focus on enhancing gender diversity in Bahraini corporate boards, this research aims to provide additional evidence in this domain. Moreover, this study stands out as one of the limited number of research endeavors that use Fintech as a moderating variable in the investigation of the impact of female directors on firms’ performance.

Research about tourism impacts is abundant. However, existing studies often investigate tourism impacts from residents’ and tourists’ perspectives. The study targeting students is absent. The students’ perception and evaluation of tourism impact must be investigated independently to have more insights into improving the current education curriculum, which covertly addresses the impacts. Therefore, this study aims to examine university students’ perception of tourism impacts as young tourists to provide implications for better teaching of such content in the future.

Vietnam was chosen as the context, and a mixed method was employed. First, free elicitation with 118 university students was carried out to identify the students’ perceived impacts (109 items, four categories). Second, structured surveys using the previously generated content with 243 and 224 university students were implemented to identify the latent structures of the impacts (3-4 factors per impact category).

Tourism impacts can be dually perceived. In other words, they can come in positive or negative forms or are directed toward the destinations or the residents. However, being positive or negative, or affecting the place or the people, tourism impacts have some general and universal elements concerning the economic, sociocultural and environmental ones. In addition, they have some specific and contextual aspects, such as cross-border marriages, child labor and economic autonomy loss.

Tourism impacts seen from the perspective of university students are relatable and valuable for tourism education. Educators in Vietnam should consider revising the current curriculum to address all the tourism impacts overtly.

This study analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the electoral mechanism of local education superintendents in South Korea, draws conclusions and makes suggestions for future reforms.

The research method of this study included document analysis and interviews. Document analysis was used to collect and analyze the relevant official documents of education superintendents across countries. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with four professors and two superintendents.

The results of the interviews indicate the following: 1) Korean stakeholders are getting more familiar with the direct election of superintendents, as the interviews indicate a more mature direct election system due to previous experience and public officials taking direct election into account; 2) The direct election of superintendents has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include increasing the participation of the general public in education, and the disadvantages include conflict between the central government and local superintendents belonging to different political parties. However, the current system is likely to be retained; 3) The superintendent systems in various countries differ due to their respective traditions and social contexts. However, the authors can always learn lessons and implications from foreign countries if the authors compare their education systems with their foreign counterparts.

As far research limitations, although this was a small study, it shows the importance of collecting multiple stakeholders' views on the direct election of education superintendents as a basis for future reform of education management.

The Korean system for electing superintendents provides a good model for other countries reflecting on the educational autonomy and accountabilities of their own systems.

The direct election of superintendents provides an example of professionalism, independence and political neutrality in education that other countries can learn from. The separation of general and educational administration in Korea through direct elections protects educational activities from political influence.

In terms of originality/value, this study adds a new perspective to the debate about whether the general public should directly elect education superintendents, as well as to the literature on local education management.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examined the mediating role of psychological availability in the relationships between principals' individual-level and group-level authentic leadership and individual teachers' wellbeing, that is, job satisfaction, life satisfaction and emotional exhaustion.

The authors conducted a three-wave online questionnaire survey among 266 teachers from 52 schools in China. Multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) was used to analyze the hypothesized relationships among the study variables.

The principals' group-level and individual-level authentic leadership were both positively associated with individual teachers' psychological availability, which in turn was positively related to their job satisfaction and life satisfaction, and negatively related to their emotional exhaustion.

School administrations should elevate the levels of principals' authentic leadership by selecting and developing authentic principals to increase teacher wellbeing.

Differing from prior research that has focused on the effect of authentic leadership at either group-level or individual-level, this study simultaneously investigated the dual-level effects of principals' authentic leadership. Moreover, psychological availability was found to mediate the dual-level effects of principals' authentic leadership on teachers' job satisfaction, life satisfaction and emotional exhaustion.